Analysis: In Dover, NHGOP spat with mayor may backfire

If you take the statewide approach, New Hampshire Republican Party chair Jennifer Horn's public back and forth with Dover Mayor Dean Trefethen makes sense, but in Dover her efforts could backfire.

On Friday, Horn asked Dover mayor Dean Trefethen to remove his affiliation with the pro-gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, just days after the group read off the names of a Boston marathon bomber and a Los Angeles cop killer among those as "gun victims" from earlier this year. The group said including these men was a mistake, but for the NHGOP it was great politics.

After all, the de-facto head of the state Republican Party, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, has been beaten up by nearly $2 million in television ads in over two months over her vote against expanding gun background checks in April. The NHGOP smartly tried to take the offensive.

In response to Horn's request that he resign from the group, Trefethen said that he would begin to consider denouncing out-of-state groups playing politics in New Hampshire the moment that she also denounced Republican affiliated groups who did the same thing. On Monday, Horn fired back with a Right to Know request asking if he supported the gun group's efforts using taxpayer resources. He responded that he didn't use any city resources given that he doesn't have an office in city hall and is not allowed to use city employees for politics.

In left-leaning Dover, the back and forth with the state's Republican leader is great politics for Trefethen, particularly when he is up for re-election this year.

In fact, some longtime Republicans in Dover, while agreeing with Horn, are confused that she chose to fight this one.

To them it is the right issue, but in the wrong city, at the wrong time.

First, Trefethen is not a Democrat. He was a Republican who changed his party registration to undeclared when he started to get more involved in city politics. Since 1997 he has voted in 10 primaries and picked up the Republican ballot eight times. In 2008, he was listed as a public supporter of John McCain ahead of the state's presidential primary.

Second, another candidate is soon to enter the race that Dover Republicans are expected to embrace.

City Councilor Karen Weston tells WMUR Political Scoop she has all but announced a run for mayor. Weston, also a registered undeclared voter, said she may make his involvement in the group an issue.

"The group sounds fine enough on the surface. I don't like illegal guns, and who does," said Weston, "But when you begin to do research on the group on what guns are illegal exactly, I am not so sure."

Councilor Michael Weeden, a Republican, put it this way: "Trefethen is the political machine candidate backed by the liberal establishment in Dover. He might vote Republican on a state level, but his voting record in Dover would not reinforce that. I will be supporting Weston and I know that the Dover GOP is strongly backing her as well."

Weeden is backed up by former state Republican Party chair Jack Kimball, another Dover resident.

"I expect every elected official as well as all law enforcement officers to honor their oath of office. The primary purpose of which is to protect, defend and uphold the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire as well as the Constitution of the United States of America," Kimball said. "So, by extension, any infringement on the right of the people to keep and bear arms by an elected official or any other individual who has taken such an oath, would put them in direct violation of that oath. The fact that Mayor Dean Trefethen is involved with Mayor Bloomberg's gun control group speaks loudly to that issue."

The problem is that Dover is one of the most Democratic cities in the state, so the number of people who agree with Weeden and Kimball will be far outnumbered in elections this fall.

City elections are non-partisan. If the choice is between a candidate embraced by the Republican establishment, in Weston, and another who fought the establishment, in Trefethen, he could easily win re-election and sign on with other anti-gun control measures.

Then again, Horn, may not care as long as Ayotte isn't the one in the crossfire.

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